Santino Ferrucci is currently ranked among the top 10 drivers in the IndyCar series. Since 2002, no driver from A.J. Foyt Enterprises has finished there.
All ten full-time IndyCar teams have experienced victory lane at some point; Juncos Hollinger Racing is the lone exception. Since the 2023 season began, five of the nine teams have emerged victorious.
This decade, Ed Carpenter Racing and Meyer Shank Racing, two of the remaining four, have emerged victorious. The only remaining teams are Dale Coyne Racing and A.J. Foyt Enterprises, whose last victory occurred five years after the former’s.
Takuma Sato’s victory in April 2013 on the streets of Long Beach, California, marked the last IndyCar race win for A.J. Foyt Enterprises and marked the beginning of Sato’s career series wins. That year, going into the 97th running of the Indianapolis 500 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, he even held the lead in the championship standings.
However, the Japanese driver’s run of bad luck began with the Indianapolis 500. Over the course of ten races, he scored nine DNFs, and by the end of the season, he had fallen to 17th place in the championship standings.
Even more time has passed since a Foyt driver placed among the top 10 in the championship standings than it did since Sato’s victory at Foyt. It hasn’t been done since Airton Dare finished in ninth place in 2002, but 11 races into the 17-race 2024 season, Santino Ferrucci is in 10th place.
Prior to the 2024 season, A.J. Foyt Enterprises and Team Penske developed a technological cooperation that appears to be working well.
Ferrucci, who is currently only one spot behind reigning Indy 500 champion and two-time winner Josef Newgarden in the standings, is coming off a strong weekend at Iowa Speedway, when his No. 14 Chevrolet was one of the very few cars that managed to really overtake other cars.
The 26-year-old’s success has elevated A.J. Foyt Enterprises from what was likely the slowest team on the grid to what is likely the best team behind tier one (Chip Ganassi Racing and Team Penske) and tier two (Arrow McLaren and Andretti Global). This season, he has seven top 10 finishes and just one DNF.
The highest placing result by a Foyt driver in the standings since Dare’s ninth place finish in 2002 is Vitor Meira’s 12th in 2010.
Ferrucci’s finest career results in the championship standings come from his 2019 and 2020 13th place efforts with Dale Coyne Racing. Remember that in 2020, the resident of Woodbury, Connecticut, finished three positions ahead of Alex Palou in the championship standings while racing with Dale Coyne Racing.
Since then, Palou has joined Chip Ganassi Racing, where he has emerged victorious in two of the three championship races that have taken place. As of right now, he leads the points.
Ferrucci struggled the remainder of the season and failed to finish in the top ten, despite his good performance in the Indianapolis 500 last year, where he placed a career-high third. But following a strong eighth-place finish in the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing” this year, he made his decision, believing that the team’s strength would hold true for the remainder of the season.
In the six races held since the Indianapolis 500, his average finish position has been 10.0, suggesting that he was right. Is he able to persevere and give “Super Tex” his first top 10 scoring performance in over 20 years?
The Ontario Honda Dealers Indy Toronto, which takes place on Sunday, July 21 at 1:00 p.m. ET on the streets of Exhibition Place in Toronto, is the 12th race on the 2024 IndyCar program. As one of just two Peacock-only races scheduled for this year, viewers will have to pay for a streaming service subscription in order to watch.